What I’m Listening To: Kyle Monhollen

Besides being “tricked into” singing in his college choir, (which he calls “one of the more rewarding four-year experiences I’ve ever had”) and being in his junior high concert band, Monhollen was mostly a fan when it came to music. That is, until September of 2011 when his friend Kelly McCrory introduced him to his neighbor David Horning. Horning was putting on “great house concerts at the time–things that should have been in proper venues.”

Monhollen showed up to a show with a bag of ice and stayed to help clean up afterward. Horning, McCrory, and Monhollen got to talking about “all these really cool little things happening in town in people’s backyards, and we wondered if there was a way to grow it.” They emailed and met, brainstorming until they landed on the idea of a membership format and the Davis Live Music Collective was born. They invited a dozen or so friends and local live music supporters to participate, kicking in some cash for guaranteed tickets. They put on their first show on February 21st, 2012. “The goal was to host a great live show and at least break even financially. We exceeded both goals and decided to keep going. We have since grown to more than thirty members, and look forward to finding new ways to build community around great live music.”

When curating shows Monhollen says they try to live up to their motto: Bringing the Best Live Music to Davis, CA.”We look for touring professionals who are also interesting performers who we feel will both connect to an audience and maybe get them to stretch a little.” Collective members are guaranteed four events annually, including Davis Music Fest so beyond the Fest, they look for “three great events our audiences can remember as the best show they saw all year. Curating involves an interesting calculus of artist availability, appropriate venue, budget, the style of the other shows we’ve already done, and–most importantly–passion from someone in the collective willing to run the show.” The shows come together in a relatively short period of time, compared to, say, the annual Davis Music Fest, and rely on a much smaller pool of people usually, Monhollen says, “just a couple folks from the board, to handle everything from contracts to clean up. When you’re doing this on your free time you have to really believe in the music and the event in order to do it right. Fortunately, that kind of passion tends to spread and get more people involved, even if it just means getting people through the doors, and helps make each event amazing.”

Around the time the Davis Live Music Collective was coming together, Danny Tomasello put on the first Davis Music Festival. At that single day, single venue show in 2011, Monhollen was only an attendee. He later met Tomasello at the end of that year as a board member of the Davis School Arts Foundation when the Fest founder donated the proceeds of that show to the Foundation, a practice they continue today. “I had been talking to a couple of other people about what would become the Davis Live Music Collective, and the two ideas–DMF and DLMC–started lining up. I started helping with the Fest in 2012, providing graphics and learning how things work, then took on a few more responsibilities each year.” In 2017, he became the Executive Director.

Today, Monhollen describes Fest as a “SXSW style multi-genre multi-venue concert/event.” It takes place in Downtown Davis and has grown to span “three days, eight venues, and 40+ artists plus a terrific roster of returning sponsors from the community.” He calls being the Executive Director “a ton of fun!” Though he admits it’s “a lot of work.” He credits the growing number of people involved in the Fest as what makes it possible–and fun. “For the first few years, DMF was really run by four people, with Danny pulling the heaviest load than a lot of others pitching in bits and pieces here and there, mostly right before or during the event. Now we have a dozen people working year round, including a standing executive board that meets monthly and a group of regular organizers who keep things moving. Which is not to say we’re now some super organized corporate thing–we still meet around someone’s kitchen table over pizza and beer–but it is great to have more voices and hands involved.”